That's Where You'll Find Me
by ADyingGalaxy
Summary: AU. Madison's mother had often said that these monsters were far smarter than humans dared give them credit for.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Self-Indulgent fanfiction for Godzilla: KOTM. Madison's parents sucked, so Mothra and Godzilla are her Mom and Dad now. **

* * *

_Someday I'll wake, and rub my eyes, and in that land beyond the skies, _

_You'll find me _

_Somewhere over the rainbow, bluebirds fly _

_Birds fly over the rainbow _

_Why..._

* * *

What was one little girl compared to the devastation of Nature?

* * *

Madison had slept through the journey, aware of only sensations, mostly. Wind whipped through her hair, sweat and grime and blood slowly dissipated from her skin as she was swooped over gently fettered seas.

Something, like delicate armor, curled beneath her body and held her close. So close, Madison was sometimes tickled by the softest fluff she'd ever felt. The kind of thing that a child might imagine clouds to feel like, airy and light. Unfailingly warm as though the sun could sink its warmth into them.

She'd blinked once, twice, and then the world had shifted from a wasteland of human modernity to undeterred wildlife. Great and ancient trees with limitlessly wide trunks and bountiful vines reaching out to everything in sight. There were roots nourished by the clearest, blinding waters surrounding them.

When the journey ended, it wasn't enough to wake the girl. Only hints of light, gentle vibration, and a peculiar, familiar song permeated the deep sleep that her body so dearly needed. In retrospect, Madison admitted to herself that that was probably for the best.

Regaining consciousness had been painful, but the terrifying confusion after had been too much for her.

Trickling water had been the sound that calmed her, after it was all over. She'd found herself lying beneath one of the enormous trees, at the tail end of roots that bunched up over the terrain without care. A thick but quiet stream rushed past her, mere inches from her face, and it was easier to stare into than the enormous, luminescent eyes of the beast hovering over her.

* * *

There were no markers to signify that this land had been discovered by human civilization. It had not been beaten into submission and refashioned into something safer by greedy hands. This place was untouched and that was why, Madison reasoned, everything was so clear. The sky was devoid of smoke and the land was untainted by steel beams and the water thrived with life. Neverending life.

The fact was both daunting and unthinkable. The giant moth that had spirited her away, in the aftermath of chaos, tended to sleep well into the day; Madison had managed to pad through the jungle that was older than time every morning.

And every morning, she could barely comprehend how small she was. Maddy often found her life was spent looking up until her neck ached, attuning to the whispers of rivers and streams, the screeches of wild things zipping past, and the clashing colors of foliage sprawled every which way.

* * *

It wasn't so much a matter of deciding to come back than it was the way Madison's pulse quickened when she noticed the light of the sun gradually dimming. She'd found few places where the world was open to her, where things could be seen from a distance.

There was an alcove before a shoreline, and a shoreline of dark sand before the ocean. It all stretched out before her and beneath the sky as though bowing to them both. Though she was probably less safe here than anywhere else in this place that had no name, Madison felt comfort in being alone.

Dutifully, however, the young girl would leave the seashore behind and return to the spot that Mothra had claimed as her own. Hers. Theirs. Maddy could never get too far before being dragged back, especially when she'd tried to run.

Sometimes she was lucky, and the monster continued to sleep upon her return. Most of the time, she was not. Most of the time, there was a soft hum, a trill, _a song _guiding her through the thickets and back into the nest.

Mothra's eyes were always glowing and, though devoid of pupils, keenly set upon the single human dithering in the grass. It wasn't a look of a predator upon prey, but softer and curiouser. Frighteningly human. Larger than life and staring at her as one might stare at a bug beneath the lens of a microscope.

The soft '_ chrrrr _' of a greeting made Maddy's shoulders sink, head bowed. She walked in the kaiju's direction and knelt down near the side of the Queen's head, still too scared to go anywhere near its beak for a mouth.

The girl hesitantly held out her hand and moved to touch the fluff of Mothra's head and slowly but surely resumed the same ritual of trust that they'd built up for days. It was much like when Madison had first seen Mothra hatch, with her mother.

Madison's mother had often said that these monsters were far smarter than humans dared give them credit for.

* * *

There are tallies in the trees but Maddy scratches them in without thought. She forgets that they serve a purpose, are meant to save her and make her feel hopeless at the same time.

She was the daughter of Drs. Emma and Mark Russell. She was well-known in Monarch, even just being the child of two highly-esteemed members. They would come looking for her, were already looking for her, would not dismiss her absence.

Until then, her days became erratic without the reminders. She began to sleep through the days and wake upon the rise of the moon.

Beside her, Mothra had watched as Madison worked her way to bringing in more light. Making a fire was more tedious than Maddy had remembered, but to accomplish it and laugh, surprised, at Mothra's interest over the flickering orange hue was enough to provide satisfaction.

Light was more important than anything. The forest about them was almost like its own ocean, so deep and dark. Aside from that, human's greatest power was useless. Fire could never provide more heat than Mothra herself. There was no need for blankets or heaters, for no chill could claim her when she was nestled in the downy fluff of her new protector.

Trust came easier with more tallies, with stronger light made with practice and patience. Sometimes, Maddy found it hard to leave her beast's side for even a moment.

* * *

Her hair wasn't quite so long as it had been when she was a little girl, but it had begun to snarl over her shoulders and snatch up twigs and leaves when she ran over blackened sand.

Madison felt like she might as well have been dancing. Her audience rested on a flattened knoll ladened with bending trees, unblinking eyes watching with rapt attention. At first it had been odd, wrong, embarrassing to run and jump and splash on the beach with someone watching.

She was mildly nostalgic as she skipped past rocks and bent down to examine new shells. (Maddy remembered being dwarfed by her father's favorite chair while her mother watched, smiling softly as her daughter looked through a book of common science projects for 3rd grade students).

To see the girl, energetic and lively, seemed to appease Mothra, whose wings needed resting. Big, beautiful and hypnotizing wings that shivered ever so slightly when Madison leapt from a low-hanging cliffside and into the sparkling sea.

The water plastered Maddy's hair to the side of her face, and she grinned widely as she squished sand between her toes. Tiny silver and pink fish swam by, slowing when in her peripheral vision and bolting fast when they caught her attention.

She was still a child now, but felt wistful as the sky clashed with purple and navy blue, allowing herself to be whisked out of the water by Mothra and led back to their shelter.

(Madison had wanted to do the entire project herself. She'd stamped her feet and cried over it several times, but when it was all over and she was standing, smiling with the hope of surprising her mother - because she could do it on her own and now Mom would see - the triumph in her chest disintegrated into nothing).

No one came.

* * *

When the Earth began to shake beneath her feet, Madison was unable to vocalize her terror in more than grunts and cries. She'd wobbled and fallen onto Mothra's face before the Queen nuzzled her gently, pushing Maddy up with a nudge of her beak.

Trees were crashing down, falling at their sides like toy soldiers as He emerged. Even a great distance away, Madison knew the being headed straight for them. He was a force of nature; not just a titan, but a King among them.

Her fear was a scent in the air, tangible. With a soothing chirp, Mothra guided the little girl back and beneath her wing, staying perfectly still as Madison shrunk and shook against her.

Once, Madison hadn't been deathly frightened of Godzilla. But since then, she'd become convinced that it was only herself and her kaiju that existed.

* * *

Were these monsters not meant to exist in an unending battle?

Madison remained in the depths of the nest, knees up to her chest. She missed the warm white fur that had blanketed her moments ago, but Mothra had risen.

Madison felt a scream try to crawl its way from her throat as she watched Godzilla tower over her guardian. Her heart felt like it was being brutally squeezed, like it had felt when the hydra had nearly murdered her father.

She couldn't stand to be alone again. It had been one thing to be alone in mind only, contending with her thoughts while her mother's work was more important, and when the bottle was more cherished by her father than anything else.

Still, Mothra seemed immune to her fear this one time. The great moth had eyes only for the king of monsters, whose enormous jaw began to widen in what might've been a war cry.

It startled Madison when she found herself charging forward, arms wide out as if to make herself seem just as large, and the scream she'd been anticipating ripped from her own mouth.

Mothra shrieked and Godzilla took a step back, not scared but stunned at the appearance of Madison's tiny figure in between them.

Then, Godzilla's head reared back, eyes no longer wide but narrowing to slits. And he roared until Madison's ears started to ring.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Part 2/3. Thank you for the R&R! **

* * *

It was eerily familiar to when Maddy had been snatched away from the false King Ghidorah. Mothra had placed herself above the foolish girl and challenged Godzilla to a standoff that no other kaiju could have attempted.

The monsters had glared at each other, haranguing each other in a language that consisted of grunts and squeaks. Their methods of communication didn't quite match, but they were conversing. It didn't exactly surprise the little girl in the middle of it all, since she'd gotten this far without speaking to Mothra in words herself.

The back and forth went on. All the while, Madison wrapped herself around Mothra's leg and clung with all her might. The fight in her was gradually disappearing. Madison deflated as she began to realize that no epic fight was going to occur - not in terms of a violent showdown.

No, it was more like they were… bickering.

Later, Mothra's trills were the only sound in the night.

A jungle teeming with life and yet all signs of it had extinguished upon the King's arrival.

The Queen swaddled Madison with a soft and caring forewing, managing to delicately clean the blood dripping from the child's nose with her lengthy tongue. It tickled as much as the tufts of fur covering Mothra's head did. And the gesture of it was just as much of a necessity as Maddy kept to her side of the nest.

Madison hadn't had a spontaneous nosebleed since she'd last seen Andrew. Thinking of him now, she supposed that she was lucky that she was only bleeding.

Now, she glared at the cause of his wake. Despite her intentions, Maddy's mom had implied some responsibility on the part of the Kaiju - on Godzilla's rampage. She'd tried to remain neutral, but how could a mother refrain from blaming everything in the world and herself for the loss of her own child?

Maddy had been the same way - it was obvious when she was little. Her parents were not to blame. They bared no guilt. It made their fighting, screaming, and sobbing confusing. Confusion was scary.

When they finally broke apart, like glass pieces from a broken window, the blame had shifted for Madison. She'd wondered privately if she was the one at fault.

* * *

Maddy stuck to Mothra's side; a duckling trailing its giantess mother. She'd begun climbing up and onto Mothra's back, and was carried with complete ease between the beast's beautiful wings. Thankfully, Mothra didn't deign to fly with Madison as her rider.

Maybe she never would, but being able to trail fingers through the lowest hanging leaves above them was enough for the little girl. Sharing the day with her Mothra was enough.

Godzilla barely bothered them. He slept in the day and at night. He woke to leave and feed, coming back with the copper smell of blood on his fangs or beneath his claws. Being up close and personal made him no less of a mystery. Surely, it could've been easy to ignore him in the day when he disappeared…

But the King insisted on infringing upon their nest.

Madison had no idea how a creature so gigantic could manage to move its girth around with such ease. On the border between night and day, he would lay far too close to Mothra - so close that their snouts would brush against each other every time without fail.

And the sight was strange, for it made Madison bristle inside. She'd had Mothra to herself for a while, and having to share with an intruder, _this_intruder, wasn't fair.

His wary looks and snarls in her direction didn't smooth things over. If she didn't know better, Madison might've thought Godzilla didn't want to share Mothra with her, either.

* * *

Her clothes were in tatters. They'd survived strife with heavy weather and mischievous vines coated in thorns as big as her big toe, but the totality of the damage was hard to ignore.

Maddy was also getting too big. Her legs had been hurting the same way they did when she was 10-years-old. A tingling icy and hot feeling had thrummed in her bones as her father bequeathed it a "growth spurt" and squeezed her shoulders uselessly.

Her growth spurts were getting easier to handle, however. She had room to run even without straying 15 feet from her home of tree canopy, grass and straw and too-sweet maude flowers. Branches downed constantly in this land, for all the forest had plenty to spare, and most were sturdy enough to carry her weight as Madison hung from them like she was in a playground.

She could stretch and she could jump, and swimming was never an issue for the water was always transparent and warm. Growing was less an aberration than simply a reason to get up and move.

It became a funny feeling, rivaled by the hums and chirps of Mothra, whose antennae wriggled in the air when she snuggled Maddy. The moth's beak for a mouth poked the child's belly mildly, teasing.

It was a week of growing when Maddy began carving into the trees, connecting the tallies into pictures of nonsense. ' _Optical Illusions' _she'd mouthed to herself as she made spirals and tunnels halfway into the mindless task.

At the end of the day, or rather the beginning of the night, Madison would point to her newest design - wings with eyes that could look back at them - and wonder if the Queen was as proud of her as Madison pretended she was.

Even though she felt like a speck of dust in comparison, the two - yes, Godzilla was still there, still impossible to ignore though she longed to get out from underneath his thumb, so to speak - were always very aware of Madison's presence. If she were there or not around, lost and needed to be found, it was never in question. It wasn't given much thought on the girl's part, though Madison detested the brusque way she was shepherded back home whenever Godzilla found her first.

She could run and had, anywhere she pleased. Maddy certainly hadn't gotten very far, but she was given more independence now than then. Her memory was detached from the beginning but for the main things:

Echolocation was her only savior, clutched tightly to her chest in the form of a bulky machine, while three dragon heads snapped at her from all sides. Screaming lightning, determined to destroy. A false king that could be overthrown by the best efforts of an insignificant human being.

Mothra had shielded her from being decimated by blinding light and had beaten her powerful wings until she had caged the miniscule human over damaged skyscrapers. Madison would never know if her mother and father had survived the battle above Fenway Park, but Mothra hadn't come for them.

She'd recognized the little girl that was brave enough to reach out and offer kindness to a beast.

Said little girl had been half-mad when she'd been taken away, and thus had been put on a short leash. Exploring was done at a slower pace when she was still too human to grapple with the new reality, and Mothra was too big to run from.

Maddy had jumped at shadows like Peter Pan and called out to mirages and artificial shapes, begging humanity to come find her.

* * *

The clouds were dark and heavy, and the tally marks were nothing when she begged for Mothra to come find her.

Using her voice to call for help was as easy as catching fish with rocks. Madison couldn't take the sensation of a knife stabbing through her larynx and the burn of her calloused feet across the jagged rocks. Night was not yet approaching, but she'd run and forgotten that not everything waited until nightfall to prey.

Raptors of some kind, tailing her with speed that made her heart bounce in her ribcage. They'd been quiet for such a long time, letting the sun drown beneath ever-growing storm clouds as they hunted her amidst thinning tree trunks on a flatter, open wide plain.

Rain drenched her in less than a minute before Madison went completely still, noticing too late as a hulking yet lanky nightmare with drool dangling from its smiling jaws stood in the dead center of her view. Distant growling came from her right, and her left. Places in between that she was blind to without help.

Her legs began to ache while she remained rooted to her spot, unknown territory no longer wonderous but deadly. If it was another untimely growth spurt or the strain that came with freezing like a deer, Madison didn't know.

Thunder culled from above them, heaven and the world beneath it disappearing in the flash of lightning that followed. It startled like the sound of a starting pistol at a dog race. Maddy flew to her left and threw her entire body, pained legs and burdensome arms, forward as carnivorous teeth snapped into the flesh of her back.

The bite made her pitch forward, and Maddy lost balance, stumbling down the grim edge of the plateau they'd driven her to. Lightning and searing hot agony turned the world a shapeless, all-consuming white once again.

She rolled from her belly onto her back, senseless. There was no end and no beginning to the pain. A life was moving behind her eyelids: the faces of her mom and dad were blurry and almost unrecognizable, just like Andrew's, and she was the target of a golden monster in a dirty wasteland.

When she opened her mouth, water droplets bubbled on her tongue and the wind whistled through her teeth, but the sound that brought her hearing back was not from herself.

Yet it encompassed all her furor.

Abruptly, claws that were digging into her chest disappeared. A gash on her back was oozing, was packed with blades of grass and swamped dirt. The rain and thunder were born again, and Maddy gasped as she sat upright, gasping. The first thing she could see through the misery were wings glowing bioluminescent.

No. Not wings. Spines.

The short lived battle between Godzilla and the raptors came and went like slides on a projector. His roar echoed far above the sound of the night sky as he easily flattened one and tore through another's fragile frame.

The carcasses were flung away, not worthy enough to be sustenance, before it was only her, and him. And Madison dragged herself up from the mud, retching through the agony she'd been dealt.

The rumble from deep within Godzilla's chest was followed by a definitive huff. It calmed Maddy in a way she never thought it could.

She was bleeding, yes. She was lucky she was only bleeding.

Madison bit her lower lip so hard that it split and stung. Her eyes stung, filling with rainwater and salt, while the blood that had drained from her face came rushing back.

The urge was pathetic, but her shoulders were shaking and her limbs were dead and soaked and Madison didn't stop herself from sobbing. With her hands balled into fists, the little girl shook with rage and fear, with an ache in her heart that she hadn't wanted to attend to. It had been too hard. It still was.

Her cries were powerful, turning ragged in haste after her voice had been obsolete for so long.

All the while, the blazing gaze of Godzilla smoldered in the dark. Watchful. Knowing.

He stood in the rain, a mountain that could not be cowed by the harshest storms, though the thunder and lightning in the heavens looked close enough to strike him easily.

Until the King slowly leaned toward her, carefully looming above Madison as she lost control. She wanted to scream, but wasn't strong enough this time.

It was no use screaming at the King of Monsters while he sheltered her with a simple incline of his head.

Like so long ago, Madison slept afterward. For days, she assumed. It was a long and dreamless sleep, never quite broken until the time was right.

Something was always crooning in her ear, lulling her back to sleep in the softest cocoon.

* * *

Maddy woke with a sneeze. And it _hurt _like **hell** .

The moon hung above her from the gap that Godzilla had made in their canopy, the first thing she saw as regained full consciousness. The child stared up at it, blinking slowly as she felt her body as heavy as stone.

At the very least, Madison was not collapsed on the apathetic dirt. Beneath her was a cushion of sorts - fine silk that glowed when in contact with moonlight, shaped around her small form as if by design.

That wasn't all.

A breeze ruffled her hair, but it was hot and heavy as though it were coming from the mouth of Hell. She could just manage to turn her head, and wall of bloodied scales replaced the moon in her eyes.

Madison stared. Stared and stared and stared. No particular thought worried her mind. The world around them remained silent. Subdued for them, letting them rest.

On her other side, Mothra warbled in her sleep, fern-shaped feelers vibrating to the tune of a lullaby that Madison knew by heart now.

Maddy listened for a time, breathing in and breathing out. She tucked herself into the fetal position, held in place by two kaiju, and slept.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: 3/3! This didn't turn out as well as I hoped. Still, I didn't want to go on any longer without finishing. I hope you enjoy some of it, even some of the cheesier stuff! Thank you so, so much for the reviews! Thank you for reading!**

* * *

The season was changing, and the only way that Madison could tell beyond the shorter nights was the increased heat and the muggy air that made her feel gross.

Nevertheless, the girl stayed within range of the small fire she had built, watching raptly as her food burned. The air was so sticky and hot that she barely noticed the blood running down her chin and dripping onto her knees - now bare after she'd cut her pants off to the thigh. Her shirt was gone, replaced by those patchy pieces of jeans, silk webs and perennial leaves. Madison was always a resourceful child. She'd had to be, growing up.

Maddy licked her lower lip, smelling the beginnings of well-cooked meat. She wasn't sure what this one was from, but biting into it before it was ready had given her an idea: fishy, salty and brine. Flavorful enough to see her through the potential danger of not fitting it for human consumption.

Whale, maybe. There had been a blue whale getting dangerously close to the shoreside not too long ago.

Mothra had made a disapproving chitter, looking at her miniscule charge with fathomless eyes until Madison had finally untethered herself to the raw food and started to prepare it.

It wasn't really her fault; Madison had been starving. Eating the foot-long rodents that sometimes poked their heads out from brambles just wasn't enough for an entire day.

When the meal was over - nothing left to spare - Madison wiped her face, downward strokes of her hand to cleanse the blood still clinging to her skin. She'd watched Mothra clean herself after a meal for so long now that it seemed like the only way to do it. Until Maddy could find a fresh body of water tomorrow evening.

Beside her, Mothra huffed. She was near, limbs stretched out over the edges of their nest and completely lax. Madison's head cocked to the side as she stared, bloody teeth forgotten for the moment.

It didn't take much to scoot closer, getting on her hands and knees. Maddy embraced the white tufts of fur that made up Mothra's head, burying her stained face. The effect was instantaneous; her hug made the giant eyes that could rival the sun from such a close distance began to drift shut. Tired. Grateful.

The Queen's mouth opened and closed as she let out another breath, like mimicking a sigh.

A good night.

* * *

Being awake had become easier than sleeping, lately.

Madison didn't know why the nightmares started now and not immediately upon her arrival. Most of them carried a mesh of human faces, slowly blurring as each defined feature is stripped away and forgotten.

She hears men and women fighting, glass breaking, smells alcohol and tears. She sees a boy staring at her, unmoving but judging with terrifyingly real blue eyes.

They all judge. Most often the theme of each nightmare is her being driven away. Dug up and cut out like a failed organ from a malfunctioning body.

She would wake up every few hours, dripping in sweat. Fighting sobs.

* * *

There was a song on repeat in her head.

They were floating on the sea, nearer to the island than far from it. Madison sat with her legs crossed to gaze into the water. It wasn't shallow enough anymore, where Godzilla could really float on his back (with her carried along the way).

Maddy was surprised when things from the outer reaches could worm their way back into her mind, even things as simple as songs. Nothing else came back to her so easily or intact.

Technically, this had been about hunting her own food. But the sun was out and practically melting every lifeform in its path. Godzilla was lazing, lapping up the sun while Madison cooled herself near the tides. She considered that, perhaps, the fish were getting smarter. Maybe they recognized the little girl with her primitive sharpened sticks riding atop a dangerous Titan's stomach by now.

Madison hummed as she got closer to the edge, ignoring a warning grunt in her direction. Aside from the odd fish or two, there were jellyfish that popped up near the surface, unafraid or scrutinizing with their translucent or yolky heads, glowing and oscillating.

A few swirled past, trying to catch up with their microscopic tentacles. Whether they were dangerous stingers or not, Maddy had no clue, but the impulse to reach for them and find out was stirring in her brain. It was stupid, like looking into an abyss and wanting to drop your gameboy into it -

The girl gasped as the tiny jellyfish made way for a much bigger one, glowing blue and yellow and pulsing like starlight, to bob at the surface. The creature was easily the size of an a-frame, wriggling frantically to catch up.

\- and still hard to resist.

Her arm reached out, fingertips absorbing water droplets, before pulling back as another warning made her foundation shake.

Looking up to see yellow eyes glaring down at her… Maddy hefted herself away by crab walking backward. At a safe distance, she didn't complain. Only hid a small pout with her arms crossed over her chest.

Godzilla blew the hair back from Madison's face with a snort. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, for a cool wind from over the water drove it away within minutes. He observed her impassively with one eye closed before she met his gaze. Defiance was her goal, but it quickly disappeared.

She decided to look at the monster with a similarly impassive gaze, nostrils flaring in a mockery of reptilian eyes seemed to shine just a bit more for that.

Unlike Mothra, Godzilla was able to retain a full head on his shoulders in the stark morning. The Queen wasn't a morning person - morning moth, so to speak. Even if the gargantuan lizard was grumpy, it tended not to scare so much as annoy Maddy.

He'd corralled her back to the nest too many times. Let her doze on his stomach and tucked her next to him like Mothra tucked her under wing. Snorted at her stubbornness and kept her safe between himself and their Queen in sleep. Carried her above the ancient land and brought her food and water to continue living. To thrive.

Fear was nothing now.

(A part of Madison didn't trust it. It was so far at the back of her mind, but she'd known what it was like to have everything taken away from her).

Still, they stayed there, minutes passed, and Madison felt pride, chest swelling when she received a fond look for her haughtiness.

It was daylight, but Madison could recognize the gold and red patterns of Mothra from miles away.

Mothra's giant eyed wings serrated through the blue above them, fluttering to get to where she'd zeroed in on the rest of her misfit family. Hard to miss.

She hovered over them with a loud 'chrr' that sounded irked. It was a warning, but more of an accusation that made Maddy's previous smile at her presence droop. She hung her head a little, confused and naturally ashamed. Below her, Godzilla gnarred in a defeated sort of way.

Madison started at the sudden rise of the beast's claws, offered to her as Godzilla motioned with his enormous head toward the heavens. One of his recognizable commands.

_Up, up._ He beckoned, claw still and open and waiting.

Maddy's mouth opened some, as if to protest. Instead, she rose from her seat and made her way over, instinctively holding on tight as her bearer parted the sea to rise from its depths. The girl glimpsed jellyfish swirling, fighting to get out of the way with fish and algae, and a bird couple that had drifted too close without being noticed.

Mothra zipped away, circling around and far out toward errant clouds as they adjusted to the change. Madison was lifted up and set down within the crowd of spines closest to Godzilla's neck.

Safety was important, of course. But as Mothra came back, upside down for the fun of it, Madison's tongue swept over her lips and she took the first step toward the top of her mountainous guardian's head.

Climbing the back of the very monster that had stamped out cities with its rage was much like climbing a rocky mountainside. Maddy could barely remember the last few camping trips she'd taken, and how she had managed to hike at all without aid.

It was a pointless endeavor, until it wasn't. Madison laid her hands against the crown of his head. His skin was tough and scaly as always, and the increase in oxygen had her digging her nails into it.

Godzilla probably didn't even feel it.

He grumbled quietly, letting her adjust to the height before he returned his attention to the Queen.

Madison's smile was blinding as Mothra swooped above them. She wobbled to a stand and felt childish for a minute, but waved and kept waving. Maddy stretched up to the once darkening blue yonder now entirely covered by colorful, watchful eyes upon wings, and felt like a supernova.

Kept laughing as Mothra tumbled gracefully through the sky, over and under clouds, always caught in their orbit.

* * *

A lull and then chaos.

It's how everything began.

She had only hoped that that pattern would be broken. Or that it could be staved off until it didn't matter.

The sun was setting, almost nonexistent behind the horizon. Godzilla carried both the little girl and the Queen upon his head, surprisingly able to courier both like a crown. He stood on the shore and stared out at sea, immovable until the sky was the color of bruises.

Madison was set back onto the ground with care, and let her feet be buried into the sand until her legs were no more than stalks. She wondered bereft if they would return to the nest or move around the island. She was more than content with the thought of either.

And then screech sounded like a missile bulleting through the air. It wasn't the same sound that Mothra made, and that alone sent a chill down Maddy's spine.

Her first fear was army men in flitting jet planes, scouring a place that they didn't deserve to look at.

The cry didn't alarm just her. Godzilla reacted quickly, though it evoked a surprised squeal from the child. Of everything she could've imagined as a defense against human intervention… Madison squirmed as she nearly drowned by saliva.

Mothra chirped and tilted her head, but didn't bother coming to Maddy's aid. Instead, she swept a critical eye over the girl while Godzilla bathed her, looking to see that every inch of Madison was covered. One limb rose to tilt Madison's head up as she retched her disgust, limb so delicate that it made the human girl feel like a page in studious hands.

The minute attention, both to her disgusted face and to Madison's hair swept up by a rough, slimy tongue, gave her just enough of an inch to make a break for it. She got fifteen feet away before her attacker sunk a tooth into the fine fabric of her silk wrappings and pulled her back.

Maddy landed on the bank with an 'oof' as she was once again engulfed by spittle. She held up her hands for it to stop, took a second to wipe away the slime from her eye-line, and indignance and rage gave away to pure shock. A UFO of barren black and molten red was headed straight for them from the stratosphere.

Madison screamed.

The memory was electric and paralyzing. She'd seen her mother come diving into the fray, only for this beast to intercept and scar her before she reached high ground. Rodan - a fire demon Titan - had been on Ghidorah's side when last Madison had seen him soaring through a stormy sky.

Here he came through regardless, not close enough to hear her and then too close for his own good. Talons dug into the grit for purchase as Rodan dashed in, landing a little less graceful than it should've been.

The gigantic bird-like Titan pulled back called, ducking his head and whirling its beady eyes toward its fellow Titans.

His hellish gaze rounded down and spotted Madison with her tiny teeth gritted and her fists clenched in presupposed rage. Rodan opened his giant beak and squawked indignantly, looking incredibly surprised to see a tiny human in their monster's paradise. His jaw yawned, unhinged as he closed in on the little thing, suddenly hungry and eager as if Madison were no more than a midnight snack.

Suddenly, he stopped. Pupils smaller, less animated and more alive than he'd previously been as his expression took on a disbelieving touch.

Above them, Godzilla waited like a monument. He would not stay stone-like, nor would Mothra - buzzing so close that Madison felt her compound eyes like spotlights on her back - if Rodan could not remember his place.

The tip of Rodan's beak scraped gently along Maddy's arm, nudging in question. She'd maintained standing her ground, though still pouring from head to toe with smelly drool. Madison's jaw set as she leaned away, staring at him over her shoulder as if he were no more than a gnat.

But then he bowed with nothing less than an acknowledging warble, making Madison's tummy somersault.

Rodan bowed low.

* * *

**"There's No Place Like Home."**


End file.
